Pediatric Surgery Training - Part 1 (from Erik)

The next several posts will be on various aspects of the pediatric surgery training program at Kijabe.  I am so grateful to be able to be a part of the pediatric surgery work at Kijabe and to build on the foundations laid by Dick Bransford and Dan Poenaru.  BethanyKids of Kijabe Hospital is a partnership between BethanyKids and Kijabe Hospital that is multi-layered and serves to provide compassionate, Christ-centered healthcare to kids with surgical disabilities as well as structured healthcare training to physicians, nurses, community health workers and patient families.

The pediatric general surgery training program is run under the auspices of the Pan African Academy of Christian Surgeons (PAACS) in conjunction with Loma Linda University and accredited by the College of Surgeons of East, Central and Southern Africa (www.cosecsa.org).  To date, we have had 6 surgeon trainees from six different African countries participate at the fellowship level. 

In addition to the pediatric general surgery training program, Dr. Leland Albright, a pediatric neurosurgeon working full-time at Kijabe Hospital, has begun training in pediatric neurosurgery.

www.worldmapper.org

This map scales the regions of the world to show the proportion of physicians working in that area.  Southern Africa is arguably the neediest part of the world.  Rwanda, for example,  has 1.9 physicians per 100,000 people.  The USA, by comparison, has 549 physicians per 100,000 people.  The surgical workforce is even smaller.  In the East/Central/Southern African region, there are 400 trained surgeons for 400 million people. Compare this to 1 surgeon for every 2,000 people in the USA.  The need to train physicians, including surgeons and pediatric surgeons, in SubSaharan Africa is desperate.

We are in Kenya to join the work that God is doing to further His Kingdom "on earth as it is in heaven."  Part of this Kingdom work is training and discipling Godly men and women in surgery to be His hands and feet to their own communities throughout Africa.  It's a huge part of why we are in Kenya and it's a privilege to be a part of the work.